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How was your cycle commute?

ddraig said:
it was a bit weird and i wasn't kicking off that much and no shouting, i advised them to put their hazards on as they'd left a young child in the back seat and turned the lights off parked in a bus lane on a 3 lane main road!
the one crying and pleading was the passenger and was offering me money for repairs etc which i didn't take as there was no damage and showed them the wheel spinning round. the driver was calmer and having a bit of a go claiming it wasn't a red light and when i said i was shaking she said she was too as she was cold!
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It was a bit like that when I got hit (at very low speed) a couple of years ago. The teenager pulling out of his parents' drive was a lot more shaken than me, who wasn't hurt at all. I just took his insurance details, had a short phone conversation with his dad who debated whose fault it might've been for insurance purposes, and they paid up a couple of weeks later.

I got out for a very short one today, only 5 miles or so, to the bike shop and back to pick up spare inners for my mountain bike. I then spent about an hour trying to configure the rear brakes. V-brakes are a fecking nightmare.
 
To add to all the bicycle-related injury posts I feel I ought to add my two cents worth.

The brief version is that I managed to dismount my commuting bike in a rather unconventional manner. Resulting in a fantastically bruised hand, bruised ribs, cuts to both legs and damage to the pesky cartilage at the end of my collar bone (I've done that before and it feckin' hurts) resulting in me being in a sling most of the week.

What *really* annoys me is that today is my first day out of the sling so I decided to ride a DIY 200km Audax - but one-armed. I knew the risk would be if I got a puncture I wouldn't be able to fix it. And - guess what - the puncture fairy struck almost immediately so I've only just finished pushing the bike back home. :mad:

On the positive side at least it didn't happen 50 miles from home - or worse five miles from the end.

That's the third puncture on the same wheel in the last three rides. I think something might be amiss...
 
ddraig said:
got hit by a car jumping a red light! :mad:
not hurt and bike not damaged just :mad: and worked up

got a pic of the car and driver as they pulled over, they were both pleading with me and one was crying, made them wait around a bit and gave them a bit of a lecture about looking out for bikes
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tenner says they were driving without insurance / tax / license.
 
a_chap said:
That's the third puncture on the same wheel in the last three rides. I think something might be amiss...
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I know you're an experienced rider so have probably already thought of it, but check the inside of your tyre for small piece of glass or whatever that may have embedded itself in the rubber. I had similar problems last year and a checking the tyre didn't turn up anything out of the norm. Wasn't till I found myself trying to patch a puncture on an already patched area of inner-tube that i thought the check the *inside* wall and, right enough, the smallest piece of glass in the history of man had worked itself all the way through the tyre.

Four punctures that piece of glass caused. Thought I was just being unlucky :D
 
If I can get the wheel out one-handed I'll give it a thorough examination. I usually run my fingers rounbd the inside of a tyre looking for anything sticking through. However when the inner tube went this morning it went with a heck of a bang, so I suspect it's not going to be a small puncture.
 
gentlegreen said:
:hmm: How are your gears arranged ?
And the brakes ? :eek:
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I checked I can still pull the brake lever with my left (attached to the bad shoulder) hand if needed. The route was intentionally pretty flat with only one hill going into a bend too tight for me to take flat out, so I was planning on not doing much braking.

As for gears - all done right-handed. Absolutely no need to shift the front gears whatsoever.
 
Orang Utan said:
Why did you ride one-handed? Did you not consider, er, not riding your bike til you had two hands free?
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The weather forecast was too good to miss the opportunity of trying to get a ride in this weekend. And in any case, you really can ride a recumbent one handed. Assuming you don't get a puncture, of course.

Now I'm going to have to do a 200 next weekend even if the waether's filthy :(
 
On checking the tyre there's a hole - which I'd previously fixed with a tyre boot - that I can almost get a biro thorough. Oddly however, that is not where the puncture was. So, I've replaced both the tyre and inner-tube.

I still can't inflate them though. One-handed pumping is beyond me still!
 
Oh well, there was no way I could have stayed in after reading about that !
That and the sunshine. :)
Just my usual trundle on the Railway path - 10 miles down, change tee shirt, refreshment, 10 miles back up.
Managed some decent sprints. 19.7 miles, 1hr 41, avg 11.6mph.
First ride over 5 miles since the lurgy back in October - quite a psychological barrier building up.

Bloody hell. The path was absolutely crawling with random pedestrians - many with dogs. Some a bit grumpy I suspect.
Perhaps they used to walk on the raw trackbed before the cycling charity got it tarmacked...

Kept hearing a knocking sound from behind me. For most of the way I assumed it was my padlock banging on the basket, but once I stopped, I soon remembered it was the wood chopping board I'd bought at Wilkos on Saturday. :facepalm:
 
Beautiful morning this morning - everyone was cycling - there were moments pulling away from traffic lights where it felt like being on critical mass.

I've been using my fixie for the last 6 months but today I switched to my road bike. Woah! It felt awesome shift through the gears and being able to freewheel down hills!
 
I left home late - hardly any other cyclists on the roads :cool: Plus it's half term so the roads weren't so busy. And the lollypop ladies and all the hoards of kids weren't there :cool:
 
a_chap said:
On checking the tyre there's a hole - which I'd previously fixed with a tyre boot - that I can almost get a biro thorough. Oddly however, that is not where the puncture was. So, I've replaced both the tyre and inner-tube.

I still can't inflate them though. One-handed pumping is beyond me still!
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220px-Bike_pump.jpg


Could use one of those type one handed, couldn't you?
 
Lovely bit of weather.
Not spring-y enough to replace my shagged chain and cassette - presumably Easter for that - not actually jumping yet.
 
ddraig said:
how is your partner now plurker?
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she's okay, thanks for asking
Had 2 days of that post-head concussion woosiness (?sp) and is still suffering with very stiff neck and quite a bit of pain. However she did manage to get to bike shop and buy a new lid, so no fear about getting back on her bike :cool:

pub will only give cctv to old bill if they ask for it, there's a lambeth cctv camera on that stretch of rd but you have to pay £10 to request footage via a form you send in, so done that and waiting waiting.

my ride this morning was great, so lovely and sunny. Even carrying my 2kg lock didn't seem to slow me down....much ;)
 
plurker said:
Even carrying my 2kg lock didn't seem to slow me down....much ;)
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I just got a new, subsidised one from work - Oxford Magnum - supplied on Police advice - advert says under a kilo, but I somehow doubt that ...
Worst aspect is the bracket - you have to lock and unlock it to remove it from the bike - which is sort of logical I suppose.
 
gentlegreen said:
I just got a new, subsidised one from work - Oxford Magnum - supplied on Police advice - advert says under a kilo, but I somehow doubt that ...
Worst aspect is the bracket - you have to lock and unlock it to remove it from the bike - which is sort of logical I suppose.
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I think they suffered a similar pen based flaw to kryptonite locks, some years ago.
 
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